Abstract

Commemorating the Past in Stone: Destabilizing Melbourne’s Memoryscape Tim Edensor, Manchester Metropolitan University

This talk explores the multiple ways in which stone has been deployed to mark the past. It will look at how a specific area of Melbourne’s urban realm has been assigned as a site of commemoration, featuring a plethora of colonial and military memorials, elements that also recur throughout the centre of the city. Tim will then discuss how the presence of other stony forms of commemoration increasingly supplement and talk back to these archetypal monuments to war and elite men, especially through the recent installation of Aboriginal artworks and memorials. We may also contest these clichéd commemorative forms, he will argue, by paying attention to the numerous ways in which stone is also haunted by traces of the past, whether geological, environmental, industrial or mundane.

The City Seminar, co-convened by the Department of Geography along with the Department of Architecture, explores the theme of ‘Infrastructures of Memory’ this year. A diverse line-up of speakers – including geographers, anthropologists, architects, artists and activists – will examine the various techniques, technologies, rituals, performances and materialities of memory and remembrance, and how they reinforce or subvert prevailing power relations.